


i think i saw you

by schwifty_rick



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Month of Sin, Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 13:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6285631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwifty_rick/pseuds/schwifty_rick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re breathing far too loud and thinking far too slowly to lift your arms quick enough to clot the wound. Your limbs are heavy and you fall to your knees unceremoniously. The smell of copper fills your lungs and chokes you, staining your insides with the bitter metal. This is it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think i saw you

**Author's Note:**

> here's my super late prompt for @month-of-sin, i wrote this at 4am please forgive me.

_Shit, he’s bleeding._

You’re breathing far too loud and thinking far too slowly to lift your arms quick enough to clot the wound. Your limbs are heavy and you fall to your knees unceremoniously. The smell of copper fills your lungs and chokes you, staining your insides with the bitter metal. Your vision’s gone blurry, face wet because there’s so much red in front of you that you’re not sure if any other color exists in this moment, but then the soft blue of his hair anchors you back for just a second.

His eyes are closed, and you lean in close, pressing your face to his. You feel his hot breath puff out against your cheek, drying the salt onto your skin. _Okay, okay. He’s breathing._

You’re not sure what to do.

You think you remember seeing on T.V. once that it’s bad to move a person if they’re this heavily injured, but you’re stranded on some fucking near barren planet and you’re feeling around for Rick’s portal gun - and you can’t find it. You’re not sure if it’s because he dropped it somewhere along the chase, or if it’s because your hands are shaking so hard that you can’t find anything except the bitter realization that Rick is going to die because you can’t do anything right.

A choked sob escapes your lips and you clench your fists because your shoulders are shaking now too and no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop them. A cold hand settles there and you freeze, eyes snapping towards his.

“M-Morty. Jesus, you - you look like shit.”

His words are more garbled than either of you would like to admit, but you smile bleakly at him because that’s just What You Do in these sorts of situations. You smile for them, tell them it’ll be okay. Deal with the hurt after they’re gone. Don’t let them see that you’re not okay.

“Me?” You laugh, and you both pretend not to notice the way your voice quakes. “Have you looked in a-a mirror lately?”

Rick grins, teeth stained bloody, and reaches into his lab coat. He takes a swig of poison and looks up, ahead, _beyond._ You want to follow his gaze but you can’t look away from him, afraid that if you do this moment will pass, and he will too.

You’re half holding your breath for some sort of witty comment or a clever quick fix but Rick doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush, doesn’t seem content on doing anything but lying there, and your eyes sting at that realization. You can’t keep up the facade because you’re angry at him for giving up so easily.

“So this is it then? This is how you go out?”

He lets out an unforgiving laugh - almost as if not believing it himself. “I guess so.”

Your face is hot, and you’re thinking of adventures and Blips and Chitz and the galaxy’s best ice cream and you’re not ready to give all of that up yet. Not when there’s so much you haven’t done, even more you haven’t said.

“No! I - I won’t let it end like this. I won’t let _you_ end like this. D-Don’t you have anything you want to say? Anything you -”

“What,” he says, eyes hard and you can see the pain there, see the way he’s struggling hard to focus on you. You don’t want to think about how you can feel the blood pooling and soaking onto your jeans because that would mean that your time together is running out, and no, that can’t be the case because he’s Rick fucking Sanchez and he’s never supposed to die. Always supposed to make it out alive somehow. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? Do you want me to tell you to have a good life without me? Grow up to be some great scientist, follow in my footsteps? Carry on my legacy, Morty?  You want me to apologize for dragging you into this? Into my world? Into this _shit?”_

He takes another swig, then tosses the flask.

It’s quiet for a moment, because his words sting, but not as much as your nails digging into your palms do. Your face is a dripping mess of snot and tears and you’re not even sure you could find your voice even if you did have something miraculous to say. It’s strange, you think, how you always seem to be at a loss for words when they matter the most.

“I’m not,” he says offhandedly. “Sorry. I’m not sorry.”

“I’m gunna throw up -” You say, because the smell is nauseating, and you’re dizzy from your tears, from your thoughts, and the sticky wetness that creeps up your leg.

A tug on your shirt doesn’t pull you back in the moment as well as you hope, but you blink away the tears to get one last good look at him.

“Hey, don’t. Don’t do this. Here - lay - lay down with me.”

“What?”

“I’m a dying man, Morty. It’s rude to ask me to repeat myself. Lay down.”

You uncurl your legs, slowly lowering yourself onto the ground. It’s hard and cold and wet, and you’re looking at him until he leans over and tilts your face up to the sky where he was looking earlier. It’s a beautiful night out, and the view from here could almost be mistaken for Earth’s with the way you can see a sky full of stars…planets…adventures. _Missed adventures,_ you correct and the sky looks damn depressing because all you can see are planets you know you’ll never visit.

“Do you even know…with all the places we’ve been, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s out there, Morty. There’s so much to see, and we barely even - we hardly saw any of it at all.

"I used to think I could do it, see it all. I made it my mission, and here I am, forty years later just as lost as I was then.”

A long pause, and then,

“Don’t make the same mistakes I did, Morty.”

You don’t ask for clarification - of what mistakes he’s referring to, but you nod anyway because it seems like the proper thing to do. The sky is awfully nice tonight, and it would almost be peaceful if not for -

“I don’t want you to apologize,” you begin softly, “for any of it. I’m - I’m thankful for the time we spent together. Grateful for it. I fucking hate you sometimes, you - you’re reckless and callous and…and…

"But you’re the only one I’ve got. The only one who ever- who ever gave me a real chance. So don’t apologize. Because…because..” _You have nothing you should be sorry for_ , you want to say, but can’t find the courage.

You think of all the times Rick’s yelled at you, called you a failure, told you how much of a piece of shit you were. That time he got so drunk that he accidently hit you and gave you a bloody lip for a week that you had to try and explain to your parents. The time he forgot you on this one planet where you were taken captive and almost turned into a sex slave for some primal barbaric species. When he tried to sell you off to some third party black market dealer so that he could get the “inside scoop” on the business. You think of all the reasons Rick was, no, is a shitty person - a shitty grandpa.

None of that seems to matter now. To be truthful, not much matters to you other than holding your breath to listen carefully enough to make sure he’s still taking his.

“You…you’re alright Morty. You’re a good kid. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Leave it to him to get sentimental in his final moments. Your hand finds his and you hold on tight, for his sake, and yours. You’re thinking of the aftermath already, the clean up. Thinking of how in an hour you’ll have to haul ass somehow and bring his body home, retrace your steps and find the portal gun, call Summer from that space cell phone or something. It’s a reality you’ll have to face soon, but not yet. Because that’s a reality without Rick and that’s not one you’ve ever thought about before. Sure, there were plenty of Mortys without Ricks, but that would never be _you._ Surely not.

“I think I can see Gazorpazorp from here,” you mention, remembering how the sky looked awfully similar back on Earth the last time Rick pointed it out for you way back when.

“You - you think Morty Jr. ever went back somehow? To where he should have been? I think about it sometimes. I think about a lot sometimes. I know you always say I always act without thinking but…I don’t really. I think a lot. About…about me…about you…about…

It’s awfully quiet, you think, and your head snaps to the left in terror. His eyes are closed again, and you thrust your face to his again, and the tears are sopping and wet and thick as they run down your cheeks in thick ribbons because there’s nothing puffing out and you missed it, you fucking missed it.

You were too busy talking and rambling that you missed the exact moment and you weren’t finished, damnit. You need more. More time.

"You can’t do this,” you croak. “Don’t do this to me. P-Please, Rick. Don’t -”

“ _No.”_

You press your head against his chest, realizing now how thin and frail he is. It’s funny how invincible he’s always seemed, always been. You curl up into him, hold him close. This was it, your last big adventure. It started out the same as any other, how the hell was he supposed to know it would be the last. How are you ever supposed to know?

He’s bleeding still, and you feel a sharp pain you lean over his body. He’s bleeding, and as you look down at your yellow shirt, you see that you are too.

You are too.

**Author's Note:**

> come sin with me on tumblr! @schwifty-rick


End file.
